Kevin Waterson has posted a new tutorial today looking at a key part of any web application - the configuration settings and how they can be stored.

PHP applications come in many shapes and sizes. Some used locally from command line, and more commonly, for web based applications. More often than not, regardless of size or type, some form of configuration variables will be stored for global access. [...] Each options has its pros and cons. Here each of these options is explored to see which method is right for your application.

He looks at four different options:

an ini file that can be parsed/modified directly by PHP

an XML file slightly more complex, but still simple for PHP to use

a PHP file with things like PHP arrays defining settings

and a database with one or more configuration tables

Each type comes with some example code and format to give you an idea of how they'd work.